HOW HAPPY COUPLES STAY HAPPY

When it comes to romantic relationships, what is normal? San Diegan Chrisanna Northrup wanted to know. Her own marriage was at stake.

With the help of two Ivy League-educated sociologists, Pepper Schwartz and James Witte, she put together a survey that received almost 100,000 responses worldwide. The authors call it the most extensive glimpse ever into the love lives of everyday people.

The resulting book, “The Normal Bar,” showcases what people who identify themselves as happy are doing when it comes to such things as romance, money, household chores, sex and parenting.

Northrup will be at Warwick’s at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Q: Where did you get the idea for this book?

A: Fourteen years into my own relationship, I started to question my happiness. It kind of felt like my husband and I were just keeping our heads above water, just survival mode, more like teammates, which is not really how I pictured my marriage looking. I pictured it a lot more fun and passionate and exciting, and it just wasn’t working out that way.

We went through years of counseling and I actually ended up moving out. The normal that he and I had created was no longer working for us. Too much gray area, and we needed to get on the same page again and really find out what we needed for ourselves to be happy, and what we really needed from each other.

I came up with some communication exercises that turned our lives around, and we went from not good to really good, and that’s when the “Normal Bar” concept was born. I thought how cool it would be to really find out what other people were doing, and in the case of the extremely happy people, learn from them.

Q: How did you decide what to ask in the survey?

A: I knew what I thought anybody in any relationship at any age would be interested in. Pepper brought a lot to the table in terms of what she was interested in, things she’s always wondered. She’s been studying this stuff for 30 years and had questions of her own, and she really knew what kind of studies were out there, and we were able to come up with questions that were never really asked before, too. She and I sat down for three days and came up with 1,300 questions.

Q: What kind of questions had never been asked before?

A: How often couples passionately kiss, for one. There wasn’t a whole lot on that.

Q: What results did you find most surprising?

A: How similar men and women were as far as their wants and needs, but how disconnected they were from actually talking about it. One data point that really jumps out at me, I think it’s 94 percent of men wanted more variety in their relationship sexually, and it was 78 percent of women who wanted variety, too. And if you look at the happiest couples, the extremely happy, they have a lot of variety. They get it. Here is everybody else wanting more variety, but they don’t talk about it. They’re afraid to talk to their partner about it.

Another interesting thing: Men wanted romance more than the women did. And pet names — that was a fascinating piece of the survey, too. It was a really strong data point for the extremely happy couples, using pet names — Honey, Babe, whatever — with their partners. I never really thought about that.

Q: One that jumped out at me was when you gave people a list of things they could have, and more people chose having unlimited money over having perfect health.

A: I was so surprised by that one, people picking money over health. And then in turn, when you ask people what causes them the most stress in their relationships, some of them say financial issues. People think money solves all the problems, and it’s not the case.

Q: Were there results that contradicted what other studies have shown?

A: One for sure. With the extremely happy couples, it was frequency of sex: three or four times a week. Pepper thought that was a little bit higher than numbers she had seen in the past. But those are the numbers we came up with.

Q: This book has been featured in national newspapers and on network TV shows. Why do you think it’s attracting so much attention?

A: People want to know what other people are doing. Look at Facebook. People are very curious about what other people are doing. “The Normal Bar” says here is what they’re doing. We don’t say you have to be normal. We’re saying this is what it looks like, and you kind of decide what works for you.